


a collector sees the value

by unicyclehippo



Series: Blue Girls Have The Most Fun [48]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: & when you have nein of them it's more than enough, F/F, sometimes it's enough to have a good friend in your corner
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:53:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25667749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unicyclehippo/pseuds/unicyclehippo
Summary: Prompt: since the crush reveal, Nott has been watching more closely and can see the cracks in beau’s facadeor,Veth collected buttons and fabric and corks. Only she could see the value in those. Nott collected rocks and sticks and baubles. And friends. She can see the value in all of them as well.
Relationships: Jester Lavorre/Beauregard Lionett
Series: Blue Girls Have The Most Fun [48]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1824289
Comments: 6
Kudos: 119





	a collector sees the value

‘That went well, I think!’

Jester. Nott would’ve guessed it came from her even if the words hadn’t been so distinctively painted by her accent. They’re not just optimistic, cheerful; in the face of the absolute shit show - literally - that just went down here in the sewers beneath the city, it’s borderline pathological to be so optimistic. Unless, of course, the person were lying through their teeth in an effort to cheer up their friends.

‘Yeah,’ Beau calls from where she’s leaned against the slimed walls. She doesn’t seem to notice the slime, or maybe it just doesn’t matter when she’s already coated in shit. ‘Definitely could’ve gone worse.’

Fjord groans. ‘ _How_ exactly could it have gone worse?’

‘One of us could’ve died.’

‘Okay, good point, fair point.’ Fjord, laying in an inch of filthy water, lifts a hand. ‘Help me up?’

It’s hard to hear over Fjord’s whining, but Nott has ears four times as large as she used to have and she thinks – she’s _pretty sure_ – she hears a wheeze. A stifled little something from Beau when she pushes off the wall and again when she extends her hand, offering it to Fjord to haul him to his feet.

‘You good?’

‘No need for the tone,’ Fjord grumbles. He drops her hand, wiping the slime onto muck-covered pants. ‘I didn’t see _you_ half-drowned to distract the fucking thing.’

Beau grins a crooked grin, red stained between her teeth. ‘It had two heads, Fjord. You know that, right?’

His shoulders slump. ‘So I didn’t even distract it. Great.’

‘I mean.’ Beau shrugs, see-saws her open palms. ‘You distracted _half_ of it,’

‘Great. Super. Just what I wanted to hear. Great. Can always count on you, Beau,’ he says with a mocking little wag of his finger, ‘to give it to me honestly. Nothing but blunt fucking honesty from you, eh?’

If she weren’t watching as closely as she is, Nott might’ve missed the flash of guilt and confusion and – so, _so_ fast Nott almost thinks she imagines it – _hurt_. And then Beau is shaking her head, clapping him on the shoulder.

‘Shut the fuck up,’ she laughs. ‘Un-poison yourself, oh paladin of beautiful nature. Cad looks like he’s two seconds from begging to heal you, go on.’

‘Huh? Oh.’ Fjord blinks over at their friend, limps toward him, a filthy hand covering a filthy wound. ‘Hey, Caduceus – would you?’

With Jester tending to Caleb and Yasha, and Caduceus with Fjord, Nott sidles up beside Beau.

‘He didn’t mean it,’ she finds herself saying.

‘Huh?’

‘Fjord. That whole honesty thing,’

‘Yes. He did.’ Beau doesn’t look upset that Nott was trying to lie; if anything, she looks amused. ‘It’s fine, it’s whatever. He’s not wrong.’

‘Hmm.’

‘What _hmm_?’

‘Nothing, nothing.’

Beau sighs. ‘I’m not in the mood for guessing games. Say what you wanna say or go fawn over Caleb.’

‘I’ll go make sure he’s _okay_ , definitely,’ Nott corrects her.

‘Great. Go on.’

‘In a moment. Are _you_ okay?’

‘I’m fine,’ Beau says.

‘Really?’

‘Yes,’ Beau lies. So well it almost looks like the truth until Nott, too fast to stop, jabs her in the side. Beau hisses, slaps her hand away. She clutches at her side as she turns away and when the coat shifts, pulls taut around her shoulders and away from her mid-section, Nott can see the great claw marks in her top – and in the skin beneath.

It’s strange to be privy to Beau’s weakness. Not that being injured is a weakness, gods know every one of them has been close to and well over that line before. But Beau never shows it, not if she can help it. It fills Nott with a weird sense of pride, knowing that Beau sort of trusts her. Of all people, she trusts Nott; and then it makes Nott’s stomach drop down down down so fast she’s sick with it, and her hands come up to defend, to fight, to fix whatever she can.

‘Holy shit! _Beau_ ,’

‘It’s fine,’

‘No it’s not! That’s the opposite of fine!’ Nott shrieks.

Beau clamps a hand over Nott’s mouth, careful of the teeth. ‘Shut up! Do you want to attract more of those things?’

Nott shakes her off. Pitches her voice low again. ‘You’re fully two centimetres from being fully gutted! That’s – that’s not fine! That’s like saying a cyclone is fine weather! That’s like saying Avantika was pleasant! That’s like-‘ Beau waits for a third analogy, vaguely expectant and even more vaguely amused. ‘Hold on, I’m thinking, I’m thinking.’ Nott shakes the thought away. Points to Beau’s gut. ‘You need to get that healed.’

‘I said it’s fine,’ Beau insists. ‘I’m still on my feet, aren’t I?’ She takes a few steps, hands spread wide as if to say, _See_? ‘Besides, Cad does his best healing when we’re unconscious.’

‘So you’re… What? Just gonna wait until something knocks you down?’

‘I mean,’ Beau shrugs. ‘Yeah.’

‘That’s stupid.’

‘Gee, thanks.’

‘No, I mean it. That’s a terrible, _terrible_ idea.’ Judging from the way Beau’s eyes slide away to the side, away from Nott’s prying stare, she knows it too. ‘Are you punishing yourself for som-‘

‘No,’ Beau snaps.

Nott squints and stares and slowly nods. ‘Alright. I believe that. But why then?’

Beau’s cheek ticks, jaw clenching. When it happens again, Nott realises that the girl is chewing on the inside of her cheek. It’s weird for that to be the thing that does it but the gesture is oddly familiar. It takes a moment to place but eventually she realises: it reminds her of a young and nervous Veth. Staring up at this girl literally covered in shit and blood, face pale beneath the muck, Nott realises again that Beau is all of twenty-something and, as far as she knows, has had shit-all in her life until the Nein came along. Nott can understand that, to a degree, but she at least had had her family and her husband until the goblins took her away.

‘They’ve got limited spells,’ Beau says. ‘I keep track of this shit. Tactics, y’know.’

‘So you’re playing the sacrificial knight, are you?’

‘I don’t intend to die,’ Beau scoffs. ‘I’m just making sure that when we actually need a heal, there’s one for us.’

Nott narrows her eyes. ‘You’re worth a heal, Beau.’

‘That’d be a first.’ Beau didn’t mean to say it. Nott can tell by the way she flinches, then winces. She reaches toward Nott. ‘Don’t - you can’t - I didn’t mean that,’

‘I won’t tell a soul,’ Nott promises. ‘ _If_ you ask her to heal you right now.’

‘Nott, c’mon,’

‘You’re of no use to us dead. Go on now. Shoo, shoo.’

* * *

She’d nearly forgotten about the shit monster and her sudden shitty understanding of the girl a few weeks later when it became increasingly clear they would have to head to Kamordah.

Beau had disappeared partway through the revelry of another job well done for a lovely amount of coin, and it isn’t until the wee hours that she returns, a fat lip and bloody knuckles the only sign of what she might’ve been up to.

Nott sets her tankard down with a thump, watches as Beau’s human eyes try to peer through the darkness to find her.

‘Have fun, did you?’

‘Nott.’

‘Detective Nott Brenatto,’

‘That’s new,’

‘Trying it out,’ Nott tells her, words and fear of it mellowed a little by the sweet and very ineffective mead she’s been drinking. ‘So. Get it all out of your system?’

Beau slides onto the stool next to her. Presses a brutal thumb to the split skin on her first knuckle. ‘Most of it.’

‘Wanna talk about it?’

‘Nothing to talk about.’

‘Wow. Wow. Lying to your best friend. I get it. Wow.’ Nott allows herself a small victory smile when the comment makes Beau snort. ‘Kamordah, huh.’

Beau goes still as a statue. Casts a sideways look Nott’s way, who catches it, a raised brow her only reply.

‘I’m scared,’ she says after a minute.

Nott barely contains a flinch. Seeing it, knowing it, is one thing. Beau _saying_ it is quite another. ‘I’ll kill him for you, if you want. Just say the word.’

Beau snorts again. Reaches over the bar top for a mug—not seeming to care whether it’s clean or dirty—and pours herself a full glass from a wine skin on her hip. It smells like the worst wine, a copper a barrel type casked wine, and Beau drinks it down like it’s fresh water in a desert.

When she speaks, her voice is a little hoarse and Nott doesn’t know whether that’s from the wine only a step above acid, or because she really doesn’t want to say what she’s saying.

‘He’s a complicated—’ Beau presses her lips together. ‘It’s not about him. It’s me.’

‘Right. I’ll believe that never.’

Beau treats her to one of those rare smiles, the actual nice ones. Not the ones she practices with Fjord but the real ones. A little awkward, a little crooked. _Jester smiles_ , Nott had taken to thinking of them that way since she only smiles like that for Jester. Nott’s eyes gleam as she takes in the rarity, tucks it away mentally with the rest of her treasured items.

‘I don’t mean he’s not an asshole. He is. I’m just—‘ She swipes her fingers in a ring of whatever liquor has been left on the counter, drags the circle outwards into two horns and a little tail. ‘I’ve been trying really fuckin’ hard to be better or whatever, leave every place better than we found it, and—‘

‘You don’t think you can do that there.’

Beau shrugs. ‘I don’t know that I want to.’

Nott hums in sympathy. Ducks a little to take in the entirety of Beau’s scowl. ‘That doesn’t make you an asshole, you realise.’

‘Kinda does. If I’m picking and choosing the places I get to leave better.’

Nott considers that for a minute. Then she sighs, reaches up to pat Beau’s shoulder. ‘Mollymauk was a lot of things,’ she says, ‘and he talked a lot of shit. But he was a good guy.’

‘Yeah. He was.’

‘And I think if he were here, and listening to this, he’d say _fuck_ that place.’ Her vehemence startles a laugh out of Beau, brings a little glint to clouded eyes. ‘Fuck that place, _fuck_ Thoreau, and _fuck_ Kamordah. You, Beau, you’re one of the Mighty fucking Nein! You’re the only thing in Kamordah worth a damn thing! And if you want us to burn the place to the ground, we’ll fuckin’ do it!’

‘The wine is actually really good. And pretty expensive,’

‘Okay, well, steal the wine first and _then_ burn it to the ground. I can improvise, I can adapt.’

Beau shakes her head, laughs again. It’s a snotty laugh and Nott doesn’t bring attention to it, or her suspiciously wet eyes.

‘Thanks. I’ll keep it in mind.’

‘You do that.’ Nott pats her hand. Jumps down off her stool. ‘See you in the morning.’

‘Yeah. See you.’


End file.
